ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—The body of famed balloonist Richard Abruzzo has arrived back in Albuquerque.

Abruzzo’s wife, Nancy, had gone to Italy for his body after his remains and those of balloonist Carol Rymer Davis and their gondola were discovered by an Italian fishing boat Dec. 6, two months after the ballooning champions disappeared while competing in the 54th Gordon Bennett Gas Balloon Race over the Adriatic Sea during a fierce storm.

Abruzzo’s body arrived at Albuquerque’s airport Saturday night.

Services are planned at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Albuquerque.

The Italian boat hauled in the balloon and its gondola with the bodies of the two Americans inside while fishing 11 miles north of Vieste, said Port Cmdr. Guido Limongelli.

He said documents found in the gondola confirmed the identities of Abruzzo, 47, Rymer Davis, 65, of Denver.

The pair had taken off with some 20 other balloons from the English city of Bristol on Sept. 25. Contact with Abruzzo and Rymer Davis was lost Sept. 29 over the Adriatic.

Search crews looked for them for a week before determining their craft had plunged toward the water at 50 mph and they likely didn’t survive.

Abruzzo was the son of famed balloonist Ben Abruzzo, who in 1981 was part of the first team to cross the Pacific Ocean by balloon. The elder Abruzzo was killed in a small airplane crash in 1985.

The younger Abruzzo and Davis won the 2004 edition of the Gordon Bennett race and the 2003 America’s Challenge gas race—one of Abruzzo’s five victories in that contest.